My aunt June Opitz, who has died aged 100, spent 50 years in the Northern Territory outback of Australia, first setting up a store and motel that became part of the Kakadu national park, and then at Charles Darwin University, where she finished a PhD aged 84 before returning to her native UK.
It was in 1958 that June became a “ten pound Pom”, sailing from Tilbury Docks. She worked her way across the country before taking a job at the remote Nourlangie safari camp, 300 miles east of Darwin. There, June met Tom Opitz, a crocodile hunter who called her Judy, a name she adopted throughout her time in Australia. They married in 1963, then set up the Cooinda Trading Post and Motel. In 1980 they returned the site to the traditional owners, and it was eventually absorbed into the newly proclaimed Kakadu national park, now a world heritage site.
